Category: Cool

Saturday Matinee – Mavis Staples, The Staple Singers, Les Paul & Billy Gibbons, and Cutty Flam

Nice groove with a great message from Mavis Staples.
[h/t windbag].

The Staple Singers, a family gospel/soul group had a number of hits in the 60’s and 70’s, and “I’ll Take You There” was my favorite due to the killer bass line.

Les Paul met up with Billy Gibbons in 1999. Interesting banter, interesting jam.

Bunkarina caught wind of a SoCal band that she thought I should check out. I did, and you should, too.

Cutty Flam is a 1-woman-2-man retro rockabilly R&B band from the San Fernando Valley. Reminds me of a combination of Richie Valens, The Paladins, Ruben & The Jets (with a sprinkling of The B-52s) and I like it.

Have a great weekend, folks. More stuff is on the way.

The. Gif Friday Post No. 486 – A Little Breakfast, A Little Fast Food & A Little Brother

[Found here, here and here.]

This Is Not A Fly Nose.

With vertebrates, a proboscis is a nose. With invertebrates, it’s a feeding appendage (I didn’t know that either).

[Found here.]

Steampunk Computer Bugs

Very cool sculptures by Michihiro Matsuoka [via]. Click for larger images.

Nothing Much Happened Today.

Yeah, I know it went viral yesterday, but so what. That’s the first time I saw it (and I reposted it just like everyone else did, except at least I linked my sources). Besides that, it’s still an awesome pic.

When I was a teenager I witnessed a “small” tornado that passed about a mile or so away from our house. Hail was raining down, sky was black with clear orange sky underneath, the funnel was a churning slow-moving mass of brown with no distinct edges. Next thing I recall is my dad grabbing me by the collar and throwing me into the basement where we hunkered down and listened to the static on the AM transistor radio.

The following day I drove to the neighborhood that took the hit. One side of the road was untouched, but the other was all splinters.

[Found here, story here, related posts here.]

Wake Up And Smell The Peanuts.

[Found here. More elephant stuff here.]

The .Gif Friday Post No. 485 – Little Squirt, Happy Dog & Cat Portal

I like the last one the best. Cat travels into the future and returns at the same instant.

[.Gifs found here, here and here.]

When Rainbows Attack

[Found here.]

Neo Classical Hot Links

R.I.P. Gregg Allman (1947 – 2017).

4 minutes and 15 seconds of a miniature goat on a hammock [via].

Here’s a small collection of Rodney Dangerfield tattoos.

Listen to the sweet song of a disturbed Dødningehoved natsværmer.

These are kinda fun bug sounds, too. The long-horned beetle is my favorite – little squeaky shoes. More here.

Started working Sudoku puzzles recently, and for a while I could only get up to a difficulty level of 2 using a basic brute force method. I began to recognize logic patterns and suspected others. This site describes them, from “naked singles” to “hidden quads.”

Schopenhauer’s 38 ways to win an argument exposed underhanded and dishonest tactics in The Art of Being Right (1831). Intended as acerbic snark, how many have you seen used in modern political discourse?

Artificial Intelligence program composes Irish folk songs. Check out this sample (performed by humans).

Rhinoceros was a funk/rock band in the late 60s-70s that should have received wider recognition.Check out “Apricot Brandy.” Don’t laugh – it made No. 46 on the Billboard charts in 1969. They never overcame the fact that they were manufactured by Electra Records.

[Top image: Robert Altbauer, Abscheulich Ding. More info here.]

Saturday Matinee – Nick Offerman, John Edmark & Phi, HST & Roy Buchanan

I’ve never seen a single episode of “Parks & Recreation,” but this advert featuring actor  Nick Offerman is mildly amusing [via]. It doesn’t go far enough IMO. Someone tell Nick that I’d be happy to outline a horror story based upon actual events.

John Edmark creates some amazing stuff using the irrational number Phi, laser cutters and strobes [via].

“Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride” is a 2006 documentary about rogue reporter Hunter S. Thompson, narrated by Nick Nolte. Thompson was an amusing unhinged journalist who set the standard for inserting himself into every story he ever covered.

Gotta have at least one music vid, and we haven’t posted any Roy Buchanan in a while, so there you go.

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, folks, and please take the time to remember what it’s all about.